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When  Labor  Goes 
To  School 

5vGenevieve  M.  Fox 


WHEN  LABOR  GOES 
To  SCHOOL 

A  Story  of  the  Workers'  Educational  Movement 


By  GENEVIEVE  M.  Fox 

Research   Worker,  Industrial  Committee 


National  Board 

Young  Womens  Christian  Associations 

New  York 

1920 


Copyright  1920,  by 

The  National  Board  of  the  Young  Womens  Christian  Associations 

of  the  United  States  of  America 

New  York 


FOREWORD 

More  and  more  thinking  men  and  women  are  realiz- 
ing how  largely  shortages  in  people's  lives  are  due  to 
shortages  in  their  education.  A  large  percentage  of 
the  membership  of  the  Young  Women's  Christian 
Association  consists  of  women  whose  education  has 
been  cut  short  at  an  early  age,  and  who  are  for  this 
reason  seriously  handicapped  not  only  in  the  business 
of  earning  a  living,  but  also  in  the  business  of  living. 
To  enable  these  women  to  bridge  over  the  gaps  in 
their  education  is,  therefore,  becoming  an  increasingly 
important  concern  of  this  organization,  especially  now 
that  women  are  assuming  heavier  responsibilities  as 
citizens  than  they  have  ever  shouldered  before. 

If  this  organization  is  to  continue  to  be  a  pioneer  in 
supplying  to  women  supplementary  opportunities  for 
education,  it  must  keep  informed  as  to  what  efforts 
wage-earning  men  and  women  are  making  to  educate 
themselves,  and  must  be  able  to  give  intelligent  infor- 
mation to  those  of  its  members  who  are  seeking  fur- 
ther opportunities  for  education. 

It  is  the  aim  of  this  pamphlet  to  give  an  idea  of  the 
spirit  and  purposes  of  recent  movements  on  the  part  of 
labor  organizations  and  universities  to  educate  their 
members ;  what  subjects  they  are  most  wanting  to 
study  and  by  what  means,  and  in  what  spirit  they  are 
going  about  studying  them.  It  is  a  subject  which  con- 
cerns not  simply  one  group  in  the  organization,  but 
the  entire  membership,  inasmuch  as  it  deals  with  the 
efforts  of  hundreds  of  men  and  women  to  obtain  fuller 
and  more  abundant  lives. 

FLORENCE  SIMMS. 

487365 


"There  can  be  no  true  democratic  com- 
munity which  has  not  adopted  the  ideal  of 
education  for  all  according  to  the  needs  of 
all." — ALBERT  MANSBRIDGE,  Contemporary 
Review. 


WHEN  LABOR  GOES  TO  SCHOOL 

A  Class  of  Students  Who  Wouldn't  Go  Home 

A  class  that  refused  to  be  dismissed  after  a  two- 
hour  session  but  adjourned  to  the  sidewalk  until  they 
were  accused  of  interfering  with  traffic  and  thereupon 
followed  their  teacher  to  the  railway  station  and  even 
took  the  train  with  him  to  his  home !  No,  this  is  not  a 
pretty  piece  of  fiction;  it  actually  happened.  But  it 
happened  not  in  the  public  school  or  in  some  big  uni- 
versity, but  in  a  school  conducted  by  a  group  of  work- 
ing men  and  working  women.  These  men  and  women 
were  going  to  school  not  because  they  had  to,  nor 
even  because  they  expected  to  get  a  better  job  by  so 
doing,  but  simply  because  they  wanted  the  power  and 
the  fullness  of  life  and  the  broadened  vision  that 
knowledge  alone  can  give.  They  were  not  studying 
something  someone  else  thought  they  ought  to  learn 
but  were  seeking  to  learn  those  things  which  they  had 
found  through  experience  that  they  needed. 

This  is  only  one  instance  of  the  many  working  men 
and  women  in  this  country  and  in  other  countries  who 
are  squeezing  into  seats  designed  for  school  children, 
or  gathering  in  some  vacant  room  of  a  public  library 
or  at  the  headquarters  of  some  local  trade  union  to 
study  English  or  economics  or  international  law  or 
political  economy  or  public  speaking  or  anything  else 
that  they  want  to  learn  and  can  find  a  teacher  to  teach. 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  A  WORKERS' 

EDUCATIONAL  MOVEMENT 

IN  ENGLAND 

The  urge  for  education  of  their  own  choosing,  on 
the  part  of  working  men  and  women  has  been  felt  in 
England  for  several  years.  Among  the  very  earliest 
expressions  of  this  need  are  the  classes  of  the  Roch- 
dale Cooperative  Society,  that  pioneer  venture  in  con- 
sumers' cooperation  which  was  started  by  some  poor 
flannel  weavers  of  the  little  town  of  Rochdale  in  1844. 
From  the  first  year  this  little  band  of  cooperators  gave 
two-and-one-half  per  cent  of  the  profits  of  their  co- 
operative store  for  education.  In  those  days  when 
there  were  no  public  libraries  and  reading  rooms  and 
when  newspapers  cost  from  eight  to  twelve  cents, 
they  opened  libraries  and  reading  rooms  of  their  own 
and  in  order  that  all  might  enjoy  the  books  and  news- 
papers they  established  evening  classes.  Thus  they 
were  pioneers  not  only  in  cooperative  selling  but  were 
also  pioneers  in  bringing  libraries,  news-rooms  and 
evening  classes  within  the  reach  of  wage-earning 
men  and  women. 

To-day  the  British  cooperative  societies  have  study 
classes  for  men  and  women  of  all  ages;  summer 
schools ;  literary  and  dramatic  circles ;  lectures  on  varied 
topics,  and  social  entertainments.  In  addition  to  the 
classes  which  they  themselves  organize,  cooperative 

6 


societies  have  given  money  to  help  universities  in  their 
extension  work  and  have  encouraged  their  members 
to  attend  university  extension  courses.  They  are  now 
working  to  establish  a  cooperative  college  for  the 
special  purpose  of  training  men  and  women  in  the 
principles  and  management  of  cooperative  enterprises. 

The  First  Working  Men's  Colleges 

It  was  in  the  1840's  also  that  the  idea  of  a  college 
for  working  men  first  found  expression  in  England,  a 
People's  College  being  opened  in  Sheffield  in  1842.  In 
1854  a  Working  Men's  College  was  opened  in  London 
by  a  little  group  of  far  visioned  men  among  whom 
were  John  Ruskin  and  Charles  Kingsley.  These  men 
saw  even  then  that  industrialism  and  the  high  cost  of 
an  education  tended  to  split  society  into  two  sections 
neither  of  which  understood  the  other.  The  aim  of 
this  college  was  to  bring  together  the  men  of  the  uni- 
versities and  the  men  in  trades  and  in  industry  that 
each  might  learn  of  the  other,  and  to  place  a  liberal 
education  and  the  comradeship  of  college  life  within 
the  reach  of  the  workers  at  the  lowest  possible  cost. 

I 
Ruskin  College 

In  1899  two  Americans,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Walter  Vroo- 
man,  established  Ruskin  College  at  Oxford.  The  de- 
sire of  its  founders  was  to  develop  the  leadership  of  the 
workers  and  to  foster  a  spirit  of  cooperation  rather 
than  an  over-pronounced  desire  for  individual  achieve- 
ment. They  wished  to  emphasize  the  importance  of 

7 


high-minded,  ambitious  men  remaining  in  the  ranks  of 
labor  and  raising  its  level  rather  than  training  them- 
selves to  rise  out  of  the  labor  movement  into 
professions. 

At  Ruskin  College  men  of  all  ages  and  all  trades 
come  together  in  classrooms  and  in  dormitories  each 
bringing  a  little  different  type  of  experience  and  each 
looking  at  life  from  a  little  different  angle.  Perhaps 
the  interchange  of  experiences  that  results  is  even 
more  valuable  than  is  the  regular  classroom  work. 
One  year  and  two  year  courses  are  given  supplemented 
by  correspondence  courses.  Football  teams,  cricket 
teams,  boxing  matches,  dramatic  societies  and  a  col- 
lege magazine  are  evidences  that  Ruskin  students  also 
get  a  taste  of  so-called  "college  life." 

The  management  of  the  College  is  in  the  hands  of  a 
council  made  up  of  representatives  of  trade  unions,  co- 
operative societies  and  the  universities.  Any  labor 
organization  which  supports  one  or  more  students  at 
the  college  can  elect  from  its  members  one  represen- 
tative. The  fees  are  very  low  and  a  large  number  of 
scholarships  are  given. 

Since  the  ending  of  the  war  a  number  of  changes 
have  been  made  in  the  work  of  Ruskin  College  which 
will  make  it  a  more  flexible  means  of  education  for  the 
workers.  One  democratic  change  is  the  admission  of 
women  and  another  the  introduction  of  short  courses 
for  those  who  cannot  give  an  entire  year  or  more  to 
study. 

It  was  probably  the  feeling  of  inflexibility  in  the 
college  work  that  led  to  an  organized  protest  on  the 
part  of  a  group  of  Ruskin  College  students  in  1909 

8 


who  established  a  college  of  their  own  called  the  Cen- 
tral Labor  College.  It  is  now  under  control  of  some 
of  the  larger  unions. 

The  Workers'  Educational  Association  of 

England 

The  Workers'  Educational  Association,  formed  in 
1903,  marked  the  beginning  of  a  wide-spread  move- 
ment for  workers'  education  in  England,  a  movement 
which  was  due  directly  to  the  efforts  of  the  workers 
themselves  and  was  an  expression  of  what  they  knew 
they  wanted.  Beginning  in  1903  as  one  little  class  in 
Birmingham  with  about  thirty  students,  it  has  grown 
into  a  society  which  has  over  170  branch  societies  and 
includes  nearly  3,000  organizations ;  trade  unions, 
trade  councils,  working  men's  clubs,  cooperative 
societies,  universities,  boards  of  education,  teachers' 
associations  and  literary  societies.  Its  members 
represent  every  variety  of  opinion  on  religious  matters 
and  every  political  party  from  Tory  to  Socialist.  It  is 
governed  by  a  Central  Council  which  includes  Oxford 
graduates  and  tool-makers,  unionists  and  non-union- 
ists, and  both  men  and  women.  It  brings  together 
people  of  every  kind  of  experience  and  unites  them  in 
the  task  of  "making  England  an  educated  country  in 
the  best  sense  of  the  word."  And  this  is  the  great 
strength  of  the  Association,  that  it  joins  together  into 
one  great  federation  all  the  organizations  and  all  the 
groups  that  are  interested,  and  enables  them  to  work 
together  using  the  machinery  for  education  that  is 
ready  at  hand  rather  than  setting  up  new  machinery  of 
their  own. 


This  Association  makes  it  possible  for  groups  of 
workers  all  over  England  to  get  together  and  state 
what  they  need  in  the  way  of  educational  opportunities 
and  either  to  go  about  securing  them  for  themselves 
or  to  apply  to  a  university  or  other  educational  au- 
thority, to  supply  the  ways  and  means.  They  may 
form  study  circles,  forums,  short  courses  or  lectures, 
or  university  tutorial  classes,  and  study  any  subject 
which  the  members  desire. 

University  Tutorial  Classes 

It  is  the  tutorial  classes  which  have  attracted  the 
most  attention  to  the  Workers'  Educational  Associa- 
tion, because  they  prove  how  intense  is  the  desire  of 
labor  for  higher  education.  These  classes  were  started 
in  1907  by  a  determined  group  of  working  men  and 
women  in  the  little  town  of  Rochdale,  who  pledged 
themselves  to  attend  classes  two  hours  in  length  for 
twenty-four  evenings  during  each  of  three  years,  to 
write  fortnightly  essays  and  to  do  as  much  reading  as 
possible  outside  of  class.  Fortified  by  these  high  resolves 
they  knocked  at  the  gates  of  Oxford  University,  or 
rather  the  local  branch  of  the  Workers'  Educational 
Association  knocked  for  them,  and  secured  for  a 
teacher  of  their  class  Mr.  R.  H.  Tawney,  now  a  fellow 
of  Balliol  College  and  a  member  of  the  Royal  Coal 
Commission  held  in  London  in  the  spring  of  1919. 

The  same  year  that  the  Rochdale  class  was  formed, 
the  workers  in  the  Potteries  of  Longton  got  together 
a  similar  group  also  taught  by  Mr.  Tawney.  The 
Longton  class  is  a  good  illustration  of  how  quickly  an 
idea  can  spread.  At  the  end  of  the  three-year  period 

10 


that  the  class  was  supposed  to  last,  those  who  had 
joined  it  still  wanted  to  go  on  studying  and  brought  in 
new  students.  At  the  end  of  seven  years  the  class  was 
still  in  existence  with  several  of  its  "charter  members" 
still  pursuing  knowledge  and  many  of  them  organizing 
and  teaching  other  classes  in  more  than  twenty  mining 
villages  round  about.  The  original  thirty  had  grown 
to  many  hundred.  Today  every  university  and  univer- 
sity college  in  England  and  Wales  is  taking  part  in 
this  movement  and  it  is  being  especially  developed  in 
Australia. 

The  tutorial  class  is  conducted  on  a  "fifty-fifty" 
plan.  The  teacher  has  half  the  two-hour  class  period 
to  lecture,  and  the  pupils  have  the  other  half  for  dis- 
cussion. A  recent  writer  on  the  subject  characterized 
the  "lecture  as  one"  and  the  "discussion  as  one  thous- 
and." This  is  very  likely  a  proportion  which  both 
teachers  and  pupils  would  agree  Upon ;  for  it  is  in  the 
discussion  hour  that  theories  are  held  up  before  the 
white  light  of  practical  experience  and  tested  out.  The 
texts  for  the  last  half  of  the  period  are  often  living 
documents  in  the  subjects.  Such  a  "living  document" 
was  the  railwayman  in  a  class  which  was  discussing 
industrial  accidents  and  the  Workmen's  Compensation 
Law.  When  the  Oxford  professor,  who  was  teaching 
the  class,  had  finished  his  lecture  on  the  subject,  this 
man  rose  from  his  chair,  called  attention  to  H:he 
wooden  stump  he  wore  in  place  of  a  leg  and  told  how 
the  Compensation  Act  had  worked  in  his  case.  The 
result  of  a  class  conducted  in  this  manner  is  a  pooling 
of  the  experiences  of  a  whole  group  of  people  and 

11 


their  joint  thinking,  the  thirty  pupils  and  the  teacher 
all  studying  together. 

Examples  are  many  of  the  zeal  of  the  students  in 
these  classes.  In  one  of  the  early  classes  there  was  a 
working  man  with  a  large  family  who,  in  order  to  get 
a  time  for  study  when  the  house  was  quiet,  would  go 
to  bed  at  seven,  get  up  at  midnight  and  work  for  two 
hours  and  then  go  back  to  bed  again.  Hard  working 
men  and  women  have  been  known  to  travel  long  dis- 
tances to  attend  a  class,  and  absences  except  for  sick- 
ness or  some  equally  unavoidable  reason  were  un- 
known. The  master  of  Balliol  College  or  Oxford 
University  who  examined  the  papers  written  in  eight 
different  tutorial  classes  to  see  if  they  were  of  univer- 
sity grade  was  amazed  to  find  that  25  per  cent  of  these 
essays  written  at  odd  moments  after  a  long  day's  work 
were  equal  to  essays  written  by  regular  honor  students 
at  Oxford. 


A  Working  Women's  College 

On  February  12th,  1920,  a  Working  Women's  Col- 
lege was  opened  near  London  under  the  direction  of 
the  Educational  Committee  of  the  Young  Women's 
Christian  Association  of  Great  Britain.  This  college 
is  the  result  of  much  thought  on  the  part  of  the  com- 
mittee, who  felt  the  need  of  equal  opportunities  in 
education  for  working  men  and  women  since  they 
share  the  same  responsibility  in  industry,  in  politics 
and  in  the  home. 

This  college  offers  to  a  group  of  about  twenty 
women  the  opportunity  to  live  together  and  study  to- 

12 


gether  for  at  least  a  year  in  a  beautiful  house  set 
down  in  a  big  garden  in  the  country.  The  course  of 
study  includes  comparative  religion,  social  and  indus- 
trial history,  economics,  literature,  elementary 
hygiene,  elementary  psychology,  singing,  applied  arts, 
and  physical  culture. 

The  instruction  is  built  around  the  English  system 
of  a  tutor  in  residence  with  a  large  number  of  fully 
qualified  visiting  lecturers  from  universities.  The 
cost  to  the  student  is  sixty  pounds  a  year  and  several 
scholarships  of  forty  pounds  are  offered.  The  initial 
heavy  expense  is  covered  by  a  guarantee  fund  raised 
by  the  committee. 

The  question,  "What  are  you  going  to  educate  them 
for?"  is  answered  thus  by  the  committee:  "We  hope  to 
educate  our  students  for  a  fuller  and  wider  life  in 
whatever  sphere  they  may  be  called  upon  to  live,  for 
except  in  this  sense,  education  truly  understood  is  not 
'for'  anything." 


A  New  Source  of  Strength  in  English  Life 

With  leaders  of  labor  and  thousands  of  men  and 
women  in  the  ranks  of  labor,  who  have  been  honor 
students  at  universities,  England  has  reason  to  feel 
that  she  has  a  new  source  of  strength  welling  up 
within  her.  She  has  the  satisfaction  of  knowing  that 
while  the  workers  are  demanding  for  themselves  more 
power  they  are  at  the  same  time  fitting  themselves  to 
use  that  power,  not  for  the  advancement  of  a  few 
individuals  or  one  or  two  little  trades  or  crafts,  but 
for  the  betterment  of  all  society.  Already  the  Work- 

13 


ers*  Educational  Association  has  made  itself  felt  as  a 
force  in  the  whole  field  of  education.  From  the  first 
it  has  sought  not  simply  to  get  what  its  members 
wanted  for  themselves  but  has  insisted  upon  the  need 
of  an  educational  system  in  England  that  should  more 
nearly  achieve  the  development  of  the  gifts  and  char- 
acters of  all  for  the  common  good.  This  Association 
had  no  small  share  in  creating  a  public  opinion  that 
demanded  the  progressive  education  bill  passed  by 
Parliament  in  1918.  One  of  the  most  important  pro- 
visions of  this  bill  is  the  requirement  that  boys  and 
girls  must  not  only  attend  school  regularly  until  they 
are  fourteen  years  old,  but  that  up  to  the  time  they 
are  eighteen  they  must  attend  continuation  school  for 
at  least  eight  hours  a  week,  between  the  hours  of  8 
a.  m.  and  7  p.  m. 


14 


PEOPLE'S  HIGH  SCHOOLS  IN  DENMARK 

The  People's  High  Schools  of  Denmark  are  in  some 
respects  like  the  university  tutorial  classes  in  England, 
but  they  have  grown  out  of  a  somewhat  different  soil  and 
have  their  own  peculiar  characteristics. 

These  high  schools  are  really  boarding  schools  where 
young  men  and  women  from  farms  and  from  towns  can 
come  for  short  periods  of  study  and  inspiration.  There 
is  usually  a  winter  term  of  five  months  for  men  and  a 
three  months'  summer  term  for  women.  In  some  schools 
the  winter  courses  are  for  both  men  and  women.  A  few 
schools  offer  a  two  years'  course.  The  tuition  is  extremely 
low  and  a  large  number  of  scholarships  granted  by  the 
state  enable  the  poorest  student  to  enter. 

The  two  men  who  brought  about  the  founding  of  the 
first  Danish  high  schools  in  the  1840's  left  a  strong 
impression  upon  the  whole  movement.  One  was  Bishop 
Grundtvig,  who  lived  in  the  years  between  1783  and  1872 
when  Denmark  was  passing  through  a  period  of  spiritual, 
political  and  economic  stagnation.  It  became  his  pas- 
sionate desire  to  awaken  his  countrymen  to  a  newer  life 
and  he  gradually  came  to  the  conviction  that  this  desire 
could  be  fulfilled  by  the  founding  of  schools  "accessible 
to  young  people  all  over  the  land,  where  they  may  readily 
get  leave  and  opportunity  to  become  better  acquainted 
not  only  with  human  nature  and  human  life  in  general, 
but  with  themselves  in  particular,  and  where  they  can 

15 


receive  guidance  in  all  civic  relations  and  become  well 
acquainted  with  their  country's  needs  in  all  directions 
.  .  .  thus  will  be  opened  a  well  of  healing  in  the  land, 
which  will  be  sought  by  crowds  from  generation  to 
generation." 

The  other  leader  in  the  folk  high  school  movement  was 
Kristcn  Kold,  the  son  of  a  poor  shoemaker  who  lived 
between  1816  and  1870.  Kold  by  birth  and  temperament 
was  fitted  for  fully  understanding  the  lives  of  working 
men  and  women,  and  at  the  same  time,  like  Bishop 
Grundtvig,  had  the  vision  and  the  spiritual  inspiration  of 
the  seer. 

From  the  days  when  these  two  men  taught  the  young 
men  and  women  of  Denmark  to  the  present,  the  teachers 
have  been  men  of  exceptional  high-mindedness  and  spiri- 
tual vision.  The  whole  Danish  folk  school  movement  lays 
especial  emphasis  upon  the  teacher's  message. 

Of  the  seventy  high  schools  that  were  existing  in  1918, 
a  little  over  half  gave  a  purely  cultural  education ;  history, 
literature,  languages,  mathematics,  sociology,  natural 
science  and  so  forth.  The  remainder  added  technical 
subjects. 

The  awakening  and  enlightenment  which  the  peasant 
youth  of  Denmark  have  received  from  the  high  schools 
is  said  to  be  the  reason  why  there  is  not  so  great  a  dis- 
tance between  the  work  of  the  few  outstanding  agricul- 
turalists and  that  of  agriculture  in  general,  and  also  the 
reason  why  the  farmers  of  Denmark  have  worked 
together  so  successfully  in  cooperative  undertakings. 


16 


AN  INTERNATIONAL  PEOPLE'S 
COLLEGE 

The  fall  of  1920  will  witness  the  opening  in  Denmark 
of  an  International  People's  College  which  will  bring 
together  in  a  little  community  working  men  and  working 
women  from  many  countries,  where  they  may  live  to- 
gether, study  together  and  work  together  for  com- 
mon ends. 

The  plan  for  such  a  college  was  inspired  by  the  Danish 
Folk  High  Schools.  Denmark  has  been  chosen  as  the 
location  because  of  the  work  of  its  high  schools,  because 
of  its  central  position  and  its  neutrality  during  the  war, 
and  because  it  is  such  a  small  state  that  it  could  not  be 
suspected  of  using  the  college  for  political  ends.  A  build- 
ing has  already  been  secured  for  the  college  and  funds 
are  now  being  raised  for  endowments  and  scholarships. 

Further  information  as  to  plans  for  this  college  may 
be  secured  from  Mr.  Richards,  Students'  Bureau,  Ameri- 
can Scandinavian  Foundation,  25  West  42nd  Street. 


17 


WORKERS'  EDUCATION  IN  THE 
UNITED   STATES 

Within  the  last  two  or  three  years  we  have  begun  to 
hear  of  labor  colleges  and  workers'  universities  in  this 
country  in  our  larger  cities.  It  is  becoming  increasingly 
evident  that  wherever  a  group  of  wage-earning  men  and 
women  have  secured  wages  and  hours  that  enable  them 
to  think  of  something  besides  the  struggle  for  the  mate- 
rial things  of  life,  the  desire  to  fill  in  the  gaps  in  their 
education  has  become  a  compelling  urge. 


"Ten  Nights  in  a  Schoolroom" 

"Ten  Nights  in  a  Schoolroom"  and  "Education  in 
the  Fourteen  Points"  were  nick-names  given  to  Boston's 
Labor  College  when  it  opened  in  April,  1919,  offering 
fourteen  courses  of  ten  lessons  each.  This  college  holds 
its  sessions  not  in  an  ivy-covered  college  hall,  but  in 
one  of  the  city's  high  school  buildings.  Its  students 
bear  little  resemblance  to  the  college  undergraduate  who 
figures  in  the  college  novel  or  play  and  is  famous  in  pro- 
portion to  his  ability  to  perform  on  the  ukelele,  dance  at 
"Prom"  and  play  football.  They  are  working  men  and 
working  women ;  pressmen,  stone  cutters,  cigar  strippers, 
garment  workers.  They  know  what  the  world  is  like 
and  what  they  are  studying  and  why  they  are  studying  it. 

But  while  Boston's  Labor  College  lacks  some  of  the 

18 


distinguishing  external  marks  of  a  college,  no  one  can 
doubt  its  right  to  the  name  who  has  looked  over  its  list 
of  lecturers  and  has  sampled  the  kind  of  thinking  that 
goes  on  in  its  classes.  In  the  opening  term  courses  were 
given  in  English,  economics,  law,  history  of  trade  union- 
ism, government  and  science.  On  its  staff  of  teachers 
were  Professor  Roscoe  Pound,  Dean  of  the  Harvard 
Law  School,  Professor  Harold  Laski  of  Harvard,  Pro- 
fessor Felix  Frankfurter  of  Harvard,  formerly  chairman 
of  the  War  Labor  Policies  Board,  and  other  men  equally 
well  known  for  their  contributions  to  education. 

Much  of  the  material  given  in  a  course  on  "Shop  Com- 
mittees" by  William  Leavitt  Stoddard  has  gone  into  his 
book  of  the  same  title,  and  the  lectures  by  Professor  Laski 
are  now  a  part  of  his  book  on  "Representative  Govern- 
ment." It  is  a  fairly  safe  guess  that  these  two  books 
will  withstand  criticism  the  better  for  having  been  tried 
out  in  part  and  having  taken  shape  in  a  classroom  of 
students  who  could  test  their  theories  by  practical  expe- 
rience. And  a  Harvard  professor  could  hardly  test  his 
theories  on  a  group  more  representative  of  the  rank  and 
file  of  the  American  people  than  were  the  students  in 
the  opening  classes  of  the  Labor  College.  There  were 
middle-aged  men  and  women  and  mere  youngsters. 
There  were  representatives  of  the  white,  yellow  and 
black  races  and  of  nearly  every  nationality,  and  there 
were  workers  in  nearly  every  kind  of  trade  or  industry. 
In  one  small  class  there  were  Negroes,  Chinese,  Italians, 
Irish,  Canadians  and  pure  Yankees,  who  were  stenog- 
raphers, stablemen,  type  setters,  telephone  operators, 
machinists,  and  carpenters. 


19 


The  Labor  College  an  Experiment  in 
Democracy 

Never  was  there  a  more  complete  experiment  in 
democracy  in  education  than  this  labor  college  established 
by  the  Boston  Central  Labor  Union.  Its  board  of  trus- 
tees is  a  Committee  of  Sixteen,  which  represents  both 
teachers  and  pupils,  eleven  being  members  of  the  unions 
affiliated  with  the  Central  Labor  Union  and  five  chosen 
from  the  teaching  body.  This  committee  brings  together 
representatives  of  stablemen's  unions,  milk  wagon  drivers' 
unions,  painters'  unions  and  nearly  every  kind  of  manual 
worker  with  Harvard  professors  and  lawyers  and 
writers.  At  its  first  commencement  exercises  last  June 
the  three  chief  speakers  were  Michael  Murphy  of  the 
stablemen's  union,  Chairman  of  the  Committee,  Profes- 
sor Pound  of  Harvard,  and  the  Governor  of  Massachu- 
setts. What  better  omen  could  there  be  for  the  coming 
of  an  era  of  better  understanding  and  of  cooperation? 

The  reasons  for  founding  a  labor  college  can  best  be 
summed  up  in  the  words  of  a  Boston  labor  leader: 

"There  isn't  a  laboring  man  but  wants  education,"  he 
declared  during  the  debate  at  the  headquarters  of  the 
Central  Labor  Union  when  the  founding  of  the  college 
was  under  discussion.  "We  all  of  us  had  to  work  pretty 
young,  most  of  us  before  we  finished  our  schooling  at 
the  public  schools.  We  couldn't  go  to  college  because 
it  cost  too  much.  The  great  state  of  Massachusetts  does 
not  provide  free  college  education.  It  ought  to,  and 
organized  labor  has  always  been  in  favor  of  a  state 
university.  There  doesn't  seem  to  be  much  chance  of 
getting  one,  and  so  it  seems  about  time  to  start  a  uni- 
versity of  our  own.  Let's  show  the  state  of  Massachu- 

20 


setts  that  labor  is  willing  to  sacrifice  for  its  own  educa- 
tion, and  perhaps  they  will  believe  us  when  we  say  that 
labor  wants  education  and  is  bound  to  have  it." 


A  Worker's  University  in  New  York  City 
Boston's  Labor  College  is  but  one  of  many  movements 
among  industrial  groups  to  secure  for  themselves  an 
education.  One  of  the  pioneer  groups  to  organize  edu- 
cational work  on  a  large  scale  is  the  International  Ladies' 
Garment  Workers'  Union,  which  has  established  a 
Workers'  University  in  New  York  City. 

Evening  classes  are  conducted  by  this  union  in  a  half 
dozen  of  the  city's  public  schools.  Following  is  a  list 
of  one  week's  activities: 

19  classes  in  English — three  times  a  week. 
4  health  lectures  weekly. 

(The  lectures  are  given  by  prominent  physi- 
cians and  have  an  attendance  of  from  200  to 
500.) 

3  classes  in  literature  or  reading  circles. 
3  classes  in  gymnasium  work. 
1  moving  picture  center. 
3  classes  in  public  speaking. 

A  special  class  for  business  agents. 

Lectures  on  the  following  subjects  are  also  given  regu- 
larly : 

Social  interpretation  of  literature. 
Evolution  and  the  labor  movement. 
Problems  of  reconstruction. 
Sociology  and  civilization. 
Labor  legislation. 

21 


Social  problems. 

Trade  unionism. 

Cooperation. 

A  thousand  pupils  an  evening  was  the  average  attend- 
ance at  the  classes  of  this  Workers'  University  last  win- 
ter. Concerts,  dramatics,  dancing  classes,  and  traveling 
libraries  are  some  of  the  other  activities  carried  on  by 
this  group.  The  same  organization  is  conducting  classes 
in  Philadelphia  and  plans  to  extend  its  work  to  other 
cities. 


"Art,  Labor  and  Science" 

The  Amalgamated  Clothing  Workers  and  several  other 
large  unions  with  a  total  membership  of  over  250,000 
have  formed  in  New  York  City  a  United  Labor  Educa- 
tion Committee  which  has  adopted  the  slogan,  "Art, 
Labor  and  Science."  Its  executive  board  is  made  up  of 
representatives  of  every  labor  organization  which  is  a 
member  of  the  committee  and  its  budget  is  made  up  of 
contributions  from  every  organization.  In  addition  to 
electing  a  representative  to  the  Executive  Board,  each 
union  appoints  an  educational  committtee  of  its  own  to 
cooperate  with  the  Central  Committee  in  arranging  work 
which  shall  fit  the  needs  of  its  own  members  in  various 
sections  of  the  city. 

As  one  would  expect  from  its  motto,  the  purpose  of 
the  United  Labor  Education  Committee  is  to  enrich  the 
lives  of  its  members  in  a  many-sided  way  by  bringing  to 
them  not  only  the  principles  of  science,  the  mechanics  of 
language,  etc.,  but  also  opportunities  to  know  the  best  in 
literature  and  in  art  and  to  have  recreation  of  a  higher 

22 


standard  than  the  "tinsel  joys"  of  our  cities.  In  carrying 
out  their  ideals  they  have  secured  the  help  of  a  group  of 
men  and  women,  well  known  for  their  work  in  the  fields 
of  art  and  science,  among  them  Professor  Charles  Beard, 
Professor  James  Harvey  Robinson,  Dr.  Louis  Harris, 
Josef  Stransky,  conductor  of  the  New  York  Philhar- 
monic Orchestra,  and  many  well-known  actors  and  musi- 
cians. Any  subject  is  taught  for  which  there  is  a  demand 
by  twenty-five  or  more  members,  and  for  which  a  teacher 
can  be  found.  In  addition  to  the  formal  course  of  study, 
popular  lectures  are  given  in  science,  economics,  biology, 
literature,  and  drama.  Symphony  concerts  and  special 
performances  of  opera  and  of  worth-while  plays  are  pro- 
vided by  arrangement  with  managers  at  rates  so  low  as 
to  give  every  member  a  chance  to  enjoy  them.  The  New 
York  Philharmonic  Orchestra  is  giving  a  special  series 
of  concerts  for  this  group  of  men  and  women  and  special 
plans  are  on  foot  for  the  opening  of  a  workmen's  theatre 
by  this  committee  some  time  in  the  near  future. 

"For  Unity,  Education  and  Spiritual  Advancement" 
was  the  slogan  of  the  Amalgamated  Clothing  Workers  of 
New  York  City  in  their  recent  campaign  to  raise  money 
for  a  $600,000  building.  Educational  work  is  considered 
by  the  builders  to  be  the  most  important  of  the  uses  to 
which  this  building  will  be  put.  The  plans  include  twenty 
classrooms  and  a  large  library  for  students. 

The  Movement  Grows 

In  Chicago  the  Women's  Trade  Union  League  and  the 
Federation  of  Labor  are  cooperating  in  conducting  classes 
in  English,  parliamentary  law,  practical  citizenship,  history 
of  trade  unions,  public  speaking,  etc. 

23 


Labor  colleges,  similar  to  Boston's  Labor  College,  have 
been  opened  in  Washington,  D.  C,  and  in  Seattle,  con- 
trolled in  each  case  by  a  Central  Labor  Council  and  plans 
are  being  made  by  trade  union  leaders  for  opening  such 
a  college  in  Minneapolis. 

In  some  cities  consumers'  cooperative  societies,  follow- 
ing the  example  of  the  British  cooperators,  are  conduct- 
ing classes  for  their  members.  Certain  political  groups 
and  certain  private  organizations  in  various  cities  are 
carrying  on  educational  work  similar  to  the  workers' 
college  in  its  aims  and  in  its  type  of  instruction.  The 
New  School  of  Social  Research,  recently  founded  in  New 
York  City  as  a  sort  of  laboratory  for  the  study  of  social 
problems  which  should  be  more  flexible  in  its  course  of 
study  than  the  average  university,  is  giving  a  special 
course  for  those  who  wish  to  teach  in  labor  colleges  and 
has  already  supplied  several  teachers  during  the  past 
season  to  the  International  Ladies'  Garment  Workers' 
Union. 

These  various  experiments  in  education  by  and  for  the 
people  are  all  very  much  alike  in  their  methods.  They 
are  managed  by  committees  or  councils  which  represent 
both  pupils  and  teachers.  The  fees  are  so  low  as  to 
keep  no  one  out;  the  teachers  are  recruited  from  the 
public  schools  and  from  neighboring  universities,  more 
emphasis  being  placed  on  a  high  standard  of  work  than 
on  the  building  in  which  the  work  is  done.  Usually  the 
cooperation  of  local  school  boards  is  secured  in  the  use 
of  school  buildings.  In  most  instances  the  course  of 
study  is  determined  wholly  by  the  needs  and  desires  of 
the  students. 

One  of  the  things  that  labor  men  and  women  particu- 

24 


larly  want  to  learn  is  how  to  speak  and  write  good  Eng- 
lish. The  man  or  woman  who  has  left  school  at  fourteen 
or  the  foreign-born  who  have  at  their  command  only  the 
rough  and  colloquial  English  which  they  have  picked  up 
by  chance,  realize  keenly  that  first  of  all  they  must  learn 
to  express  themselves  clearly  and  forcefully.  They  feel 
especially  the  need  of  supplementing  their  hard-won 
knowledge  in  the  realm  of  industry  and  business  by  the 
understanding  of  economic  principles  and  of  industrial 
history.  Not  only  do  working  men  and  women  wish  to 
be  better  fitted  for  their  struggle  with  material  things, 
but  also  to  enrich  their  lives  by  increasing  their  power 
to  enjoy  the  best  of  music,  drama  and  art. 


The  Spirit  of  Labor  College  Students 

At  the  opening  of  Washington's  Trade  Union  College, 
one  of  the  teaching  staff  of  the  college,  who  had  been  a 
public  school  teacher  for  several  years,  said  that  for  the 
first  time  in  her  life  teaching  school  was  going  to  be 
what  she  had  expected  it  would  be  when  she  started  out 
on  her  career,  teaching  pupils  who  were  interested  and 
eager  to  learn  instead  of  forcing  knowledge  upon  unwill- 
ing victims. 

The  genuine  hunger  for  an  education;  the  stillness  in 
which  one  can  hear  a  pin  drop  that  prevails  during  lec- 
tures ;  and  the  avalanche  of  questions  that  follows  during 
the  discussion  hour  are  constant  sources  of  surprise  and 
delight  to  teachers  in  trade  union  classes.  A  teacher  in 
Boston's  Labor  College  tells  how  one  evening  a  pupil  in 
his  class  left  his  seat  during  the  lecture  to  get  a  drink  of 
water  from  a  faucet  in  the  classroom.  The  indignation 

25 


upon  the  faces  of  his  fellow  students  at  the  slight  dis- 
turbance was  a  stinging  rebuke,  and  at  the  end  of  the 
class  one  of  the  students  apologized  to  the  teacher  for 
the  incident  and  told  him  he  could  be  sure  that  it  would 
never  happen  again.  "Never  have  I  seen  more  earnest 
and  conscientious  attention  to  business  in  any  classroom," 
is  the  comment  of  one  teacher  in  a  labor  college. 

When  H.  G.  Wells  was  in  this  country  a  few  years 
ago,  he  is  reported  as  having  remarked  that  the  American 
college  student  seemed  to  have  the  impression  that  the 
world's  thinking  had  all  been  done  by  a  few  great  men 
many  years  ago,  and  that  it  was  the  business  of  the 
present-day  student  merely  to  collect  the  souvenirs.  No 
one  could  hear  the  questions  and  discussions  in  one  of 
these  groups  without  realizing  that  the  labor  college  stu- 
dent has  no  such  idea  of  education.  He  is  very  much 
aware  that  the  great  thinkers  of  the  past  are  but  chal- 
lenges to  him  to  go  on  blazing  the  trail  where  they  left  off. 


26 


HOW  LABOR  COLLEGES  HAVE  COME 
ABOUT 

As  a  spontaneous  expression  of  the  educational  needs 
of  a  large  part  of  the  population  the  Workers'  Educa- 
tional Movement  is  worth  careful  study.  It  has  come 
into  existence  because  working  men  and  working  women 
are  realizing  that  if  they  are  to  shoulder  the  heavier 
responsibilities  that  they  are  asking  for  and  if  they  are  to 
develop  a  sane  and  efficient  leadership  and  if  they  are  to 
enter  upon  the  fuller  and  more  abundant  life  they  are 
seeking,  they  must  go  to  school.  They  are  realizing  that 
not  higher  wages  nor  shorter  hours  but  a  knowledge  of 
the  truth  will  make  them  free. 

This  urge  for  a  higher  education  on  the  part  of  labor 
has  by  no  means  developed  over  night.  It  is  but  the 
expression  of  a  long  felt  shortage  in  our  whole  educa- 
tional system.  The  boys  and  girls  of  the  early  nineteenth 
century  used  to  work  on  the  farm  or  in  the  home  during 
the  spring  and  summer  months  when  work  was  heavy  and 
go  to  school  during  the  winter  when  there  was  little  work 
to  be  done.  Sometimes  when  obliged  to  leave  school 
altogether  they  would  study  at  odd  times  with  the  min- 
ister of  their  church  or  a  leading  lawyer  in  their  town 
and  would  often  fit  themselves  for  professions  in  this 
way.  But  with  the  coming  of  a  great  industrial  era,  the 
boundary  line  between  school  days  and  work  days  became 
very  sharply  marked.  One  had  a  certain  number  of  years 

27 


of  all  school  and  no  work  and  then  this  period  suddenly 
came  to  an  end  and  gave  place  to  a  period  of  all  work 
and  no  school.  If  a  boy  left  school  and  went  into  a 
factory  or  business  house  at  the  age  of  fourteen  or  fif- 
teen, the  chances  were  that  he  would  go  through  life  with 
only  a  grammar  school  education.  The  situation  in  edu- 
cation was  very  much  as  the  food  situation  would  be  if 
the  only  people  who  could  get  a  dinner  were  those  who 
could  afford  the  time  and  money  to  go  to  an  expensive 
restaurant  and  get  a  many  course  table  d'hote  meal. 


THE  NEED  OF  EDUCATIONAL  LUNCH 
COUNTERS 

It  soon  became  apparent  that  there  was  need  of  edu- 
cational lunch  counters  and  lunch  wagons  if  the  require- 
ments of  a  whole  community  were  to  be  met.  Gradually, 
school  boards  and  college  trustees  and  the  public  in  gen- 
eral are  realizing  that  education  should  not  be  a  matter 
of  a  few  years  but  of  a  lifetime,  that  it  should  meet  the 
needs  of  men  and  women  of  all  ages  and  all  types  of 
experience,  that  it  should  be  served  at  lunch  counter 
hours  and  prices  instead  of  simply  as  a  great  banquet, 
and  that  it  should  be  brought  to  people  instead  of  forcing 
people  to  come  to  it. 

Within  the  last  fifteen  or  twenty  years  there  have  been 
many  attempts  to  make  education  more  elastic  and  more 
democratic.  The  public  schools  have  opened  evening 
high  schools,  the  universities  have  conducted  extension 
courses,  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  and  Y.  W.  C.  A.  and  other 
organizations  have  held  evening  classes ;  but  almost  every 
form  of  extension  education  fails  of  being  completely 

28 


democratic,  in  that,  while  it  is  education  for  the  people, 
it  is  not  education  by  the  people;  it  is  something  pre- 
scribed by  one  group  for  another  group.     The  evening 
high  school,  while  it  makes  it  possible  for  boys  and  girls 
to  take  the  prescribed  high  school  course  or  in  many 
instances  to  train  themselves   for  special  vocations,  at 
hours  which  do  not  interfere  with  their  earning  a  living, 
does  not  take  into  consideration  the  man  or  woman  who 
neither  wishes  to  pursue  the  regular  high  school  course 
or  to  study  for  some  special  trade,  but  simply  desires  to 
enrich  his  life.    Several  of  our  large  universities  through 
their  extension  work  are  making  definite  progress  toward 
becoming  people's  universities  by  finding  out  what  people 
all  over  the  state  are  needing   and  wanting  to  learn, 
whether  they  be  engaged  in  agriculture,  in  home  making, 
in  industry,  in  business  or  in  professions,  and  then  put- 
ting the  means  of  securing  an  education  within  their 
reach  through  special  short-term  courses,  through  corre- 
spondence courses,  through  traveling  libraries,  traveling 
lecturers  and  people's  forums.  However,  many  university 
extension  courses  fall  short  of  attaining  their  purpose  by 
charging  fees  that  are  so  high  that  few  wage-earners 
can  afford  them.    But  university  extension  courses,  even- 
ing classes,  civic  forums  and  church   forums  have  all 
helped  to  develop  a  democratic  ideal  of  education. 


POSSIBILITIES   OF  THE   MOVEMENT 

If  the  experiments  in  workers'  education  which  are 
now  being  tried  in  this  country  can  meet  with  the  friendly 
cooperation  of  educators  and  educational  agencies,  the 
movement  can  prove  to  be  a  tremendous  source  of 

29 


strength  and  saneness  in  American  life.  It  can  break 
down  the  high  barriers  that  divide  the  so-called  "brain 
workers"  and  "hand  workers"  into  two  separate  camps, 
although  their  interests  are  identical.  It  can  clear  away 
some  of  the  fog  banks  that  are  befuddling  much  of  our 
thinking  today  by  bringing  into  the  studies  of  professors, 
writers,  editors,  law  makers,  etc.,  glimpses  of  life  as  it  is 
being  lived  in  the  workshop,  in  the  foundry,  under  the 
earth,  in  mines  and  in  subway  construction,  in  the  holds 
of  ships,  and  high  up  on  the  steel  skeletons  of  sky- 
scrapers, and  by  bringing  to  those  under  the  heaviest  fire 
in  the  army  of  industry  the  kind  of  scientific  knowledge 
that  shall  make  them  see  clearly  and  choose  wisely. 

Too  long  have  men  sat  apart  from  life  and  dispensed 
knowledge  as  remote  in  its  bearing  upon  the  future  lives 
of  their  pupils  as  the  tree-shaded  serenity  of  a  college 
campus  is  remote  from  the  rush  and  roar  of  industry  and 
commerce.  Too  long  have  men  made  fine  plans  for  salva- 
tion of  the  so-called  "masses"  with  little,  if  any,  first-hand 
knowledge  of  the  lives  of  the  men  and  women  who  make 
up  those  "masses";  and  too  long  have  the  men  and 
women  in  the  ranks  of  labor  failed  to  realize  their  com- 
mon interests  with  the  "highbrows,"  as  they  have  been 
wont  to  class  all  who  did  not  do  manual  work. 

The  movement  for  workers'  education  is  more  than  a 
movement  for  the  improvement  of  one  particular  class. 
It  can  be  a  mighty  force  in  bringing  together  groups  of 
men  and  women  who  are  groping  for  the  same  goal  of  a 
more  abundant  life,  but  for  the  darkness  cannot  see  that 
it  is  the"  same  goal. 


30 


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